Nowhere to Run ✓

ten | ❝anna, it's a deathtrap.❞

Anna looked horrified, confusion and just a little bit of fear growing in her eyes, "How am I supposed to go in there without intel?! Are you even listening to yourself?"

"Anna, it's a deathtrap. We know. But Damien knows you. He wouldn't have chosen you otherwise. Just work on gaining their trust. You'll know," Zach suddenly spoke up, his eyes locking into hers.

She sighed, rolled her eyes and turned away from him. She bent down again but this time to stretch out her arms and legs.

Tia came back and said, "Okay so, just to make things easier, Dad sent out a field agent and she intercepted a woman. We received intel from the woman on the condition of her release that Florian was teaming up with a certain Moschino Marvoni for a job.

They'll be having a recruitment at an undisclosed location. Bravo couldn't locate the meeting site and the woman wouldn't speak a word further. She denied everything except that she knew the given information."

Anna nodded her head. "Where was she walking towards when she was intercepted?"

Tia thumbed through the files and Zach looked over her arm. He found the name first, "The Grand Fifth."

"Great. I've been looking up Ostraria's map on Google and there are quite a few blind spots ahead of Grand Fifth. Let me head out. I am assuming that they'll check me for wires and weapons so I won't be carrying any.

If you don't hear from me in a week, tell Damien and search every single building ahead of the Grand Fifth," Anna instructed them. "See you soon," she smiled and switched off the laptop.

She walked out of the room and down the hallway which branched into a living room and a laundry room. The corridor was decorated with low lamps and numerous photos from the fake life of Annabeth Curtis.

Photos of her supposed graduation with Zavier and Tara, from a fake prom with another agent on her arm, from her first day of work, from her childhood. Surrounded by a lie.

Anna grabbed a coat from the rack and opened the door. Wind as closed as ice hit her square in the chest and she shivered involuntarily. She pulled out the new phone that David had helped her buy on her first day and quickly punched in the directions to the Grand Fifth. Two miles, the map showed.

Anna clicked her tongue and broke into a lazy jog. She passed bungalows and jewelry shops, uncharacteristic to small towns. She passed a private school and saw the kids laid out on the grass, laughing and playing. Her shoes beat against the cobbled pathways as she crossed expensive cars and heavily dressed women. She knew she stood out like a fish on land.

Mermaid on land, she corrected herself as she gathered appreciative glances from the younger people walking by. She huffed and jogged further, finally reaching the Grand Fifth. She slowed down and looked around for any sign that might help her further.

Anna stared straight ahead and found three roads leading away from the street she was on. Trusting her gut, she decided to follow the middle path, the one that forked its way straight ahead.

Anna began walking towards it. Her senses immediately caught movement next to her. She looked at the cause of the movement out of the corner of her eye.

It was a young man, presumably her age, with shining blue eyes and dark hair the colour of fine coffee grounds. His jaw was soft but the edge was razor sharp, enough to slice through any woman's heart.

But she was not any other woman and she had a job to do, she reminded herself. The man had now fallen into step beside her and no matter how fast she walked, he was right next to her. Frustrated, she turned to him.

"Look, I am not interested. Go pick on someone else your own size. I really don't find you attractive and I don't have the time, either," she said and waved her hands, dismissing him.

Instead of being offended or causing a scene as she had expected, the man chuckled, the sound of which irritated her. "I am not here to hit on you. I don't find you attractive either," he said, glee dancing in his ocean blue eyes.

Anna rubbed her temple, now annoyed and bored. "Okay, what do you want?"

His eyes looked into hers, as if searching for something important. She raised her eyebrows after a few minutes of silence and shook her head asking what. He cleared his throat and said, "Yeah, sorry. You here for the GFC?"

She knew she ought to say no but something about the way he said it, made Anna stop in her thoughts. The urgency, the firmness, the secrecy with which he spoke was unintentional but practiced. She decided to trust her gut one more time and found herself nodding.

His eyes lit up with approval and a smile flashed across his face. "That's great. Get in," he said and a car appeared, out of nowhere, next to them on the road. She sat inside, her heart pounding wildly. She could imagine a thousand other ways this whole thing could go wrong but she sat tight.

Suddenly, the man's arm snaked around her and slipped a blindfold over her eyes. "Don't worry, it's just a formality our boss insists on."

Anna felt the car move and for the next ten minutes, she sat in complete silence, the low hum of the engine the only sound she heard. She felt the car stop and the blindfold was removed. She looked outside the window, surprised when she saw the car parked inside a broken and abandoned warehouse.

She opened the door and found herself standing in a huge lobby with a winding staircase. The upper floor had a long balcony and broken doors. Windows were visible from where she stood. On her right the voice of a man humming could be heard. Her left had tons of crates and equipment piled up on top of each other. Mark ushered her inside the room on her right.

Anna looked up to see that the room was vast with high walls covered in screens and wires. They were all lit up, showing different roads, banks, shops, and government agencies.

Bingo, Anna smiled and her eyes moved down to the console. It was a large table with all kinds of buttons and joysticks spread out over it. She saw the lean back of a man, controlling them intently, his head snaking from screen after screen.

The man next to her coughed and he turned. Her blood turned cold and the smile on her face was wiped out. She found herself staring into the warm honey coloured eyes that she had thought about a few months ago.

She saw the same lean body that had pushed her against her own frame. She saw the same wicked smile that she had found annoying. She saw him. All of him. Only this time, he was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt which revealed his tattooed arms.

He smiled at her and her heart constricted painfully in her chest. "You," Anna whispered.

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